EvanSteelPerformance.com / BMW Team and Jake Holden Have Solid Start to 2012 Season

(March 19, 2012) - Daytona 2012 was a solid start to the AMA Pro Racing season for Jake Holden and the EvanSteelPerformance.com BMW team. Jake finished seventh in race one, and eighth in race two, with lap times improving every time the bike went out on track. The team leaves Daytona sixth overall in AMA Pro National Guard SuperBike points, and is looking forward to round two in Atlanta. The unique challenges of Daytona and its famed high banking caused the team more trouble than anticipated, and during the first session it became obvious that the bike set up would need to be modified to obtain the maximum possible grip and control for Jake. The crew worked non-stop, and improved every session of the weekend, thanks in large part to Holden’s never say die attitude and professionalism.

Evan Steel “I want to thank the entire team for working so hard this weekend, we showed up feeling pretty good about our bike setup, but it was quickly obvious during the first session that we were in big trouble. The low grip conditions here hurt our performance much more than we anticipated, but we were able to make solid progress all weekend to get back towards the front of the very fast AMA Pro National Guard SuperBike field. Seventh and eighth isn’t what we wanted for sure, but all things considered it was a decent weekend, and we can build from here. Sixth overall in points is promising, we will head home and test a few ideas we came up with during the weekend, and try to do a bit better at Road Atlanta. I want to thank Mark and Linda from Musselman Honda, and John Cartwright from Iron Horse Motorcycles for helping us make this weekend possible. I also really want to thank Jake Holden, he did an outstanding job for us this weekend, and I truly believe we can build a very competitive privateer superbike program around him.”

Jake Holden “The weekend didn’t turn out quite the way we wanted, but the team worked really well together and overcame a lot of obstacles, we made constant forward progress but just ran out of time. A positive is we finished both races, and leave here sixth in points, the best points position I have left Daytona with since 2006 or so. I really want to thank all my friends and sponsors who made this race weekend possible. We are very much a grassroots effort and couldn’t do it without them! I am happy to be racing 1000cc bikes again, and grateful to have the support of a lot of great people and companies. I can’t wait to race the BMW S1000RR at Road Atlanta.”